Humans are not created to be alone. We need each other, not just for love, but to grow. Thinking and imagining… growing and being.

There was a writer in the small town where I grew up in the seventies; no, actually, a man who tried to write books, because I’ve never seen his name on the back of a book. He was a man with thick glasses, disheveled hair and crooked fingers. If we walked close enough, we could hear the sound of the typewriter through his office window. Either way, it was important that he wasn’t disturbed but was allowed to sit quietly alone with his thoughts and creativity.

It’s easy to imagine that art is created this way, but great accomplishments are rarely the work of one person. Creativity will often have a better starting point when brilliant people come together and complement each other, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Two heads probably think better than one.

Around the same time the Beatles made their breakthrough, Swedish author couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, along with their policeman Martin Beck, created a new literary genre: Nordic Noir. All of us Scandinavian detective novel writers who came later stand on their shoulders, whether we write alone or with others.

Thomas Enger and I belong to the new generation of Nordic writers. Each of us has published books with the same publisher and over the years we have been able to help each other. I benefited from privileged information thanks to Thomas’ background as a journalist when I needed it in my work, and I was happy to share my experience as a police investigator with him.

When we met, we often talked about the books we had read recently – what we liked and disliked, and discovered that we had a lot of common preferences. From there was born the germ of an idea to write something together. We had been successful individually and were confident in our own writing, but it was somehow more exciting to challenge ourselves by doing something new and different. It was only natural that we create a series with a police investigator and a journalist in the main roles.

The crucial thing for a good collaboration is the rather diffuse expression “good chemistry” between two people. At the same time, creative collaboration involves the art of balance. Part of the success of our detective series about police investigator Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm is that we as writers have different and yet not so different writing styles that we can’t disagree without entering into conflict. We’re both open to the idea that things can be done differently, and neither of us is so valuable that we demand change. The differences are significant and some self-sacrifice – an absence of ego – is absolutely necessary to achieve a successful outcome.

Finding the right collaboration – a plot we both loved and characters we cared about – was a long process. The story – the plot itself – had to be created, and also negotiated, experienced, and then adjusted. Over the years, we discussed possibilities, plots and characters before finding the time to complete our project. Finally, in 2018, Blix and Ramm’s first book was published in Norway. This novel – Death Deserved, in English – was different from the books we had written solo. There’s more speed, pacing, and driving throughout the story. There’s a bigger energy and there’s a lot more at play – because being two makes you more fearless as a writer. You can set bigger goals, expand your ambitions and aim higher.

Unhinged is the third book in the series, and the pace has been picked up even further. We wanted readers to be surprised – even shocked – and for the main character to face even greater risk and torment.

One of Blix’s colleagues has discovered a strange link between several murder cases in Oslo over the past 18 months. She tries to call him, not wanting to involve anyone else yet. But before Blix has time to call her back, she is shot and killed in her own home. A few pages later: Alex Blix and Emma Ramm are locked up in separate interrogation rooms. Blix shot and killed a man, and Ramm saw it all happen. There is immense danger and emotion in this book; and we took collective risks that we might not have taken individually.

Some collaborations die out, while others grow stronger, and it’s interesting to see. Writing together is thinking together. By editing and writing in each other’s parts of the book, matching each other’s diction, prose style and turn of phrase, we learned a lot about the craft of writing itself. For us, it has been so rewarding and inspiring that we are committed to continuing! And the next book will be out next year!
Unhinged is published by Orenda Books and translated by Megan Turney